on the wax

It's a play in an outdoor amphitheatre, reminiscent of Shakespeare, but older. Twelfth century tragedy. Cuckolded and eventually murdered husband. Star-crossed lover/killers tortured by their crime. Comic fools who posture, growl and arrrrgh like pirates. Minimalist set: two chairs, shared props, red scarves to indicate blood, some Christmas lights and the dinner plate moon for illumination. Community theatre, a little loose around the edges, but endearingly entertaining. Fred doesn't suffer fools and so snaps at their ankles as they pass through the aisles. One arrrrghs at him and he barks in protest. The audience laughs. The troupe passes a basket during intermission, like church, and the small crowd pulls crumpled bills from pockets and purses in solidarity with the players. This night we play Medicis to their thespian gypsies. Their art is ours.

After, we go to a local bar and sit down with a friend and two strangers, girls our friend met by happenstance. Sometimes beer just tastes better in company. Shots less sad when shared.

One of the stranger-girls has a knee brace and announces her name is Shannon, or Tristan or Trouble or Crazy or Crazy Trouble. Crazy Trouble would leave her exes in peace if she could, but they keep taking her to court. She was humiliated on the Judge Joe Brown show, she says. He ruled against her, but gave her three hundred dollars to appear, put her up in a swank L.A. hotel and even paid the penalty to the ex who won the "suit." But she was still humiliated and drank a half bottle of Jäger (from a pump bottle no less) to dull the sting. Passed out on the rooftop of that swank hotel. You can still see her episode in syndication if you want. The most popular episode of the last half-year. But she doesn't want to brag.

The knee brace she says, is just for security. She doesn't really need it for drinking. Usually, she's got on thigh-high boots so you can't see it. I think of the comic-fool-pirates from an hour ago. She would make a good addition to the cast just playing herself. She enumerates the series of accidents that make the brace a must and then says she wraps herself around a pole. I wonder at the present tense, imagining her having crashed a motorcycle or maybe even a hot air balloon. But then she adds, two times a week. She's the Pride of the South Side, she says. A dancer at the Crazy Horse. Trouble, indeed. But I bet you can hear her laugh all the way from Texas.

It's tough for the stranger-girls to leave. There's confusion about the bill. We don't mind, we say. We'll happily cover you if you're short. You were good company, at least worth a drink or two. Go enjoy your night. No worries. But Rhianna (stranger-girl two) is distraught and can't let go. Trouble, outside the fence by now, balances on the lower beam of the railing and leans in toward us smiling and rolling her eyes at her friend's distress. Her keys, tied to a shoestring, swing from her neck -- a latchkey stripper. Pippi Longstocking grown up and gone awry. After many, many minutes they go. They're walking home and I think I hadn't given them enough credit.

The friend is really a friend of a friend and he's glad to see us. He's soaring on life, only weighed down by the anchor of a broken heart. Life is rarely perfect. Often a disappointment. But he has dreams of bigger things and smaller things and ultimately richer things, so even in this very real and present sadness, his confidence is palpable, even if he's selling it to sell it to himself. Still, one doesn't need tarot cards or tea leaves to scry his future success. He's just one of those guys who will be. Whose will, will be.

By now, my eyes scratchy with pollen, are too itchy for me to sit longer or go anywhere else but home. But I'm going home to my new bower bedroom, saturated with bigmoonlight, airy and clean and high above the street. A perfect vantage for Fred to bark at passing fools. A place where I can rest easy. So I don't mind going home tonight. A day full behind me and life, in this wee hour of tomorrow, waxing bright. I don't mind at all.